Wikidata:Curious Facts
Wikidata has a ton of data and we need to help the editors keep its quality high. One type of data that hints at potential errors in the data are outliers and similar anomalies. However they might also be a hint at something really curious happening in the world. It’s hard for a machine to automatically judge if it is an error in the data or a real curiosity but our editors can. We want to surface these anomalies to editors to either entertain/educate or get them fixed.
If we can make data quality work a bit more fun and educational, maybe we get more and new people to help out with it.
Try it: Curious Facts
Some existing examples of the types of anomalies and outliers we’re looking for edit
- Woman who married the Eiffel Tower
- Countries with more or less than one capital
- Town in Alaska with a cat as a mayor
- Most things of type X happening in a given timeframe but another thing a few hundred years before or after
- Most things of type X being located in a certain area but another thing being far away from that area
Target users and stakeholders edit
- Wikidata editors who are curious about weird stuff happening in the world and also care about data quality
- Wikidata team using it as a source of interesting tweets to push to social media
Expected Impact edit
- More people keep an eye on data quality
- People who already monitor data quality have a new tool at their disposal
- More people know about weird stuff in the world, getting an understanding of why the flexibility of Wikidata’s data model matters
Feedback edit
At any point, feel free to give feedback on this talk page. Updates will be announced on the usual communication channels (Project Chat, weekly newsletter).